One of the most basic, but significant changes, is the publication of the universal book identifier, ISBN number. The ISBN allows students to identify the specific textbook through outside providers in order to shop competitively outside the university bookstore. At the beginning of the Spring 2009 semester, where do USM institutions stand?
- University of Maryland, College Park, UMBC, and Towson all publish ISBN numbers on their public, bookstore webpages.
- At UMB and UB, the bookstore provides a detailed description, including title, edition, publisher, and author, on their webpage. Of note, these two institutions do not provide ISBN numbers.
- At Bowie, UMES, and Salisbury, the bookstore simply provides the title of the textbook selection and the author. No ISBN or edition number is provided.
- At Coppin, there is no online list of textbook selections.
- At UMUC and Frostburg, the bookstore can only be accessed through a student log-in, so I was unable to access the list.
Some progress has been made on "opening" the market of textbooks. Students at UMCP, UMBC, Towson, UMB, and UB could fairly easily find textbooks outside of the university bookstore, while students at other campuses would struggle to do so. UMCP, UMBC, and Towson should be commended for taking the progressive step of publishing ISBN numbers.
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Does anyone know a way we can advertise the selling of our old textbooks to other UMBC students? I have found buying textbooks from other students is often the cheapest way to go!
Unless UMBC made a group within MYumbc as like, a forum of some sort to advertise selling and buying books among other students, (which is highly unlikely because it would take business away from the book store), I'd say the best bet is using social networking sites such as facebook to create groups where people could join and post which textbooks they had or needed to buy/sell.
It really is the cheapest way to go, because the bookstore doesn't give you back much for books (which is stupid because half the time the "required textbooks" don't even get used..) and you'll end up getting your books cheaper even than buying a used textbook at the store.
@ Rebecca: Interestingly enough, myUMBC has created such an interface, called UMBC Bookswap. It can be found at http://my.umbc.edu/bookswap/
BookScrooge.com - If the site proves successful I will be either partnering with the Bookswap provided by UMBC or creating my own solution to allow students to post that they have a book for sale. In theory launching for the fall semester.
The only problem with this system is that some professors dont post what books they are using for the semester prior to class and that hurts people who are limited to the time they have on campus for class. Those students, myself included who need to get books before the semester are out of luck and it hurts us. I think it should be mandatory that professors post books prior to the semester so we can get them at the school store and not have to go to an outside source. I mean some books may be out of print and might take up to a month to get.
@ Anon3: You raise a valid concern that primarily occurs with late-assigned professors. In about 95% of courses, textbooks are selected, submitted, and posted on the bookstore website (and now myUMBC if you are a UMBC student) more than a month before the start of classes. For the few courses where a faculty member has yet to be determined, this does not apply. So to your comment about requiring faculty to submit books in the previous semester, that is in place. The question is what to do with the 5% of courses that remain a question, often up until the first day of classes.
One solution is the one we have now: simply wait until the faculty member shows up on the first day. This presents a burden for students and harms certain students more than others. Another solution would be to have the department select the materials. But this doesn't work because there is no sure way to know that the professor will like and actually use the materials selected. The last solution, of which I will likely now recommend in conversations with the USM, is that the department/faculty member for these 5% of courses be in direct contact regarding textbook selections with registered students via email to ensure instantaneous selection information. This would provide some relief to an otherwise difficult situation.
Thanks for contributing.
Hi I am a new transfer freshman student here and I was wondering if anyone who like to sell their chemistry 101 book,biology 302 book, and calculus 1 book to me?
@Michelle- I have Stewart's Calculus book if you are interested!
(used for Calc I & II) becca347@aol.com
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